A Blood Seduction (Vamp City #1)(80)

Her stomach heaved. The room spun again, and she was back in Cristoff's house of horrors, in Kassius's arms, sweating, shaking. Stunned.

Kassius jerked back, his mouth bloody, his dark eyes wide as he stared at her in shock. Then he blinked, hiding his thoughts behind a mask of calm. She'd thought he was a vampire. He was a vampire. But was he a wolf, too? Had anything she'd seen been real? He licked his lips of the blood and set her on her feet beside him, angling that big body between her and Cristoff. Her hip felt bruised but no longer broken. Amazing. She had to get these vampires to bite her more often.

Her gaze found Arturo, who stood stiffly across the room, his face hard as stone.

"Well?" Cristoff demanded.

"Two slaves freed her," Kassius replied. "Marcus and Celeste."

"Who ordered them to do it?"

"The sorceress believes the slaves were acting on their own. There was a group of them looking for escape from Vamp City. They banded together to free her, hoping she could help them leave through a sunbeam."

"How did they get her out of the castle?"

"She has no memory of it. They knocked her out. She awoke in a ruin somewhere in the Nod. A sunbeam broke through nearby soon after, but vamps caught a couple of their group, and they scurried back into hiding."

Kassius was lying. Why? To protect the Slavas? She'd seen how he appeared to care about them. Or was his intent to go after them himself?

"Where are the rest of them, now?"

"A few more were recaptured, a few killed. The rest scattered, and she became separated from them and lost in the Nod. That's where Arturo found her."

He was lying through his teeth. Or making it up. Either way, she was grateful he hadn't implicated Grant or spilled the location of the tunnels. Although he knew about them now, which might still spell disaster. If she ever got the chance, she'd have to warn Grant.

"Leave us."

At Cristoff's command, Kassius walked away without a backward glance, joining Arturo. Shoulder to shoulder, they left her with the devil.

In the blink of an eye, Cristoff's hand was tight around her upper arm. His face inches from her own as her heart thudded in her chest.

"You're mine, sorceress. Mine. If you ever try to escape me again, I'll cut off your feet. Then we'll see how far you get." He shifted his hold, pulled her back against him, pushing her head to the side, and struck. His fangs sank into her neck with a fire unlike anything she'd ever suffered - as if he'd stabbed her with a tuning fork red-hot from the coals.

And she screamed.

Quinn moaned, the pain a beast inside her, devouring her with its teeth, searing her with its fire. Life had become nothing but darkness and heartache and agony as she lay chained to the floor of this unlit bare stone cell.

Two days had passed since she had seen Zack in the gladiator camp. Every time the slave arrived to force water down her throat, she asked. Two days. The Games were past, she knew that, too.

Zack was dead.

Pain lanced her heart, the worst pain of all. She'd failed him.

The beast roared, searing through her flesh and mind, devouring all thought, all memory of what she was or had ever been. Even in the midst of the fire, she felt a terrible coldness of the heart, the mind, the soul.

Tears slipped down her cheeks to run into her hair. She prayed for oblivion. Unconsciousness. Death.

Finally, blessedly, sleep swallowed her once more.

Arturo strode through the dark, musty dungeon deep below the castle, his hands fisted at his sides, his heart cold with an anger directed at Cristoff, at Quinn, but mostly directed at himself. He'd told himself he was washing his hands of her. There was nothing he could do for her. She was no longer his concern. Until a few minutes ago, when Kassius informed him she was being held in one of the dungeon cells. His blood had run cold.

Why had he let himself get involved with her, a human? A sorceress. The woman had caused him nothing but trouble from the moment he'd found her. If only someone else had been the one to pluck her from the greedy grasp of that out-of-control vampire.

Now she was Cristoff's prisoner, possibly their savior. Kassius had told him what happened when he'd bitten her a couple of days ago. How her magic had reached out and grabbed him, how he'd sensed a vast store of power in her, rippling in the darkness. Untapped. Possibly unreachable.

Kassius had kept that to himself, sharing it only with Arturo. Kas's loyalty to his master was not as absolute as Arturo's, but, then, it never had been. And while Arturo's loyalty to Cristoff was solid, he would never betray his friend.

He opened the small cell door and stared in dismay at Quinn, lying unconscious on the stone floor in the dark, her face swollen and bloody. Her neck . . . Jesus. He fell to his knees beside her, touching her skin. She was burning up, not with fever, but with dragon fire. Cristoff had bitten her, using his unique poison to enflame the flesh until the puncture wounds were bright red and swollen to the size of a ripe plum. He'd seen Cristoff use this particular form of torture before. The pain he caused with it was excruciating, and Cristoff always fed well off that pain. But Cristoff wasn't anywhere near close enough to feed off Quinn's. He'd poisoned her for the pure satisfaction of knowing she suffered. Knowing her mind could never be cleared of the memory.

Damn him.

Fury tore through him and he flew to his feet, slamming his hand into the wall, shattering stone. He never questioned Cristoff's actions. Never.